Wednesday, February 21, 2018

This is a photograph of Ellen Hinds celebrating New Year’s Eve 2016 at Shannondell, about 2 1/2 months before her death.

by Stacey Burling

On a frigid night last March, Ellen Hinds, who was 85 and had
dementia, left her apartment building in her retirement community north
of Philadelphia wearing only light pajamas. There was snow on the
ground, and her feet were bare. She carried a potted plant but no key.
It was 2:15 a.m.

Five hours later, she was found near a different door lying facedown
in the snow. She was turning blue. Her feet showed signs of frostbite.
There were icicles on her hands and feet, according to a report from
first responders.

She died a week later having never regained consciousness. Family
members said she appeared to be in “great agony.” Her death certificate
lists “complications of hypothermia” as the cause of death.

Her son, Blake Rowe, a drug company scientist, has filed suit against
Shannondell at Valley Forge in Audubon and its security company,
Universal Protection Service LLC, claiming that they should have done
more to protect his mother. She had been allowed to stay in an
independent-living apartment after Shannondell knew she had a tendency
to become confused and wander aimlessly, the suit says.

“I put my trust in them. They said they would do an assessment they
never did,” said Rowe, who got the “horrible” news that his mother was
in the hospital as his plane landed in Florida for his honeymoon. As
for the security company, he said, “If they were doing their rounds,
someone would not be at a door for five hours freezing to death.”

Rowe’s King of Prussia-based lawyer, Robert Snyder, said Shannondell
should have put Hinds “in the right place to get the right care so she’d
still be alive today.”

The case is a nightmare scenario for many families. The Alzheimer’s
Association estimates that up to 60 percent of dementia sufferers will
wander, a hard-to-define behavior that involves traveling by foot (or
car) in ways that don’t make sense to the rest of us. A man who hasn’t
worked for years may head for the office. A woman may pace the halls of
her assisted-living facility with no goal she can name. The danger
comes when brain damage causes wanderers to get lost and then makes it
hard for them to seek help in a rational way. It’s particularly scary
in the winter, when frailty mixed with subfreezing temperatures can
quickly turn deadly.

The Hinds case also illustrates a trend in senior housing — at all
levels of care, including independent living, residents are older and
have more health problems than in the past — with safety implications
that may surprise families. Most seniors want to be as independent as they can for as long as they can.Families
shopping for senior apartments may want to look beyond the quality of
the food or beauty of the grounds and ask what will happen when a loved
one declines: Were your buildings and security designed with dementia
in mind? Whose job is it — the family’s or the facility’s — to start
the conversation when a resident needs more help?

‘Nobody’s bothered to notice’

It is impossible to know how many caregivers have gotten calls like the one Rowe received.
Many wandering incidents never involve police or health authorities.
Spokesmen for the Pennsylvania and federal human services agencies said
they could not find statistics on people who had left assisted-living
facilities and nursing homes or on deaths related to wandering. Laurie
Brewer, chief of staff of the New Jersey Long-Term Care Ombudsman, said
there were 65 cases of wandering from nursing homes and 26 from assisted
living or other residential health care in 2017. Reporting is not
required for wandering from independent-living facilities or for private
homes.

Robert Koester, an expert on search and rescue with special expertise
in elders who wander, estimates that roughly 250,000 people with
dementia will be reported missing to police this year. The number will
rise as baby boomers age. About half of older people wander from their
homes, he said, while the rest find their way out of institutions like
nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. In an analysis of 800
searches involving people with dementia, 6 percent of those in urban
areas died compared with 8 percent in wilderness.

“Nobody’s bothered to notice how big this problem actually is,” he said.

An Allentown nursing home lost its license in October in response to the death last summer of a 77-year-old resident with Alzheimer’s
who wandered from the facility. Her body was found in a ditch three
weeks later. A 2016 lawsuit involved a man in his 90s who managed to
leave the Arden Courts Memory Care Community in King of Prussia in
February 2014 and suffered frostbite. An 87-year-old man was found dead
on a cold night in 2014 after wandering outside of Arden Courts of Cherry Hill, an assisted-living facility.

But Rowe’s lawsuit explores relatively new legal territory. While
lawyers have sued nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, Snyder
and other local elder law experts said they were unaware of cases
involving residents of independent living who have wandered. Ellen Hinds
got about 20 hours a week of extra help from a retired nurse but was
not under constant supervision.

Shannondell is a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), a
common form of senior living meant to help people remain in the same
development as they need more care. According to its website,
Shannondell offers a continuum from independent living to nursing home.
It has a memory unit for people with dementia.

Shannondell did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
Its lawyer, Peter Callahan, said he was not authorized to speak and
referred a reporter to insurer CNA, which did not respond to questions.
John Donovan, a lawyer for the security company, also did not respond
to a request for comment. In court filings, both sets of lawyers denied
wrongdoing. Shannondell’s responses to the suit emphasized that Hinds
lived independently and that her building was not a medical facility.
It denied knowing that she had memory problems and said it was not
responsible for her death.

How independent is independent living?

Snyder argues that the expectation of support is different for a
resident of independent living in a CCRC than for regular apartment
dwellers.

“You’re not independent,” he said. “You’re buying a program for
multiple steps for the rest of your life. You’re buying a first step.”

MICHAEL BRYANT

Robert Snyder is representing the Hinds family in the case against
Shannondell.

Hinds had moved from her longtime home in California in September
2016 to be near Rowe, who lives in Skippack. She paid a $145,000 entry
fee and monthly rent of $1,845 to live in a gated community with 24-hour
security, meals, and activities. While some CCRCs offer stable rents
regardless of their level of care, Hinds would have had to pay more for
personal, memory, or nursing-home care.

Martin Kardon, a Philadelphia lawyer who specializes in cases
involving medical errors and nursing-home neglect, agrees with Snyder
here. “Independent living,” he said, “is a lot different than renting an
apartment at the Academy House.”

Michael Ringold, a Marlton lawyer who specializes in nursing-home
abuse cases, said this case would be “difficult” because
independent-living facilities are not expected to provide supervision.
His own mother died after wandering from a memory unit in California in
2016. Even in locked facilities, residents can get out, he said, often
because of short staffing.

While independent living is not regulated as a health provider,
experts on aging said the line between it and assisted living — adding
help with activities like dressing and taking medicine — is blurring.

“Independent living communities are more and more ‘independent’ in
name only,” said Jerold Rothkoff, an elder law attorney in Cherry Hill.

These days, people tend to be older when they first come to
independent living, and many hire aides to help them stay there. Many
resist moving to a higher level of care, either because they don’t want
to pay extra or, more often, don’t want to admit they need extra help.

“Family members hate, hate, hate moving their family members out of
independent living,” said Julie Thomas, associate director of clinical
services for the Alzheimer’s Association Delaware Valley Chapter.

Danielle Snyderman, a Jefferson Health geriatrician who works
frequently at The Hill at Whitemarsh, a CCRC, said wandering by someone
in independent living there would immediately put that resident at the
top of the list for a discussion about a higher level of care.
Shannondell wouldn’t comment on its practices.

Some independent-living facilities said they will admit people they
know have dementia, although that typically happens when there is also a
well spouse in the picture or an aide.

“These places were not designed to take care of people with dementia,” Rothkoff said.

‘She hated the cold’

Ellen Hinds lost her first husband in 1985, the second in 2012.
Rowe’s brother and only sibling died in 2015 of lung cancer. Rowe then
began hearing from her neighbors that his mother was depressed and
behaving oddly. She was wandering around at night. She looked for a
nonexistent lost dog in the bushes. She thought she saw children in the
yard.

Rowe intervened, and his mother wondered if the medicine she was
taking for nerve pain was making her hallucinate, but realized she
needed more help. She agreed to move to Pennsylvania. Her only
concern, said Jenny Hinds, her ex-stepdaughter-in-law and frequent
companion, was the climate. “She hated the cold,” Hinds said.

Ellen Hinds toured Shannondell and one other facility and liked them
both. Rowe pushed for Shannondell because it had more residents, and he
wanted her to “get out and meet people.” She loved how new and clean
everything was. Rowe has pictures of her dancing on New Year’s Eve.
She walked unaided and had enough stamina for 12-hour excursions to
casinos or the mall with Jenny Hinds. Before her death, the two were
planning a trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show.MICHAEL BRYANT

from her grandchildren at Christmas 2016. Blake Rowe is pictured in the
background.

Rowe says he told Shannondell officials from the beginning that his
mother had a history of wandering and memory problems, though her
symptoms had improved after surgery for the nerve problem in California.

Not long after she moved in, Rowe began getting calls from
Shannondell that his mother had been found wandering. At least twice,
he was told she’d gone into the parking lot late at night, and he
needed to come to her apartment. He took her to his house and brought
her back when she seemed all right. He says he took her to a doctor
with an office in the Shannondell community, who diagnosed her with Lewy body dementia and told him she would eventually need more care. He assumed, he said, that that information would be shared with Shannondell.

In their response to the lawsuit, Shannondell said that doctor did
not work for them, but had an independent practice that leased space.

Rowe said his mother had $900,000 when she died, plenty to pay for a
higher level of care. He would have moved her to Shannondell’s memory
unit, but no one from the retirement community brought it up. Neither
did he.

“Their nurses were the ones calling me” about wandering, Rowe said of
Shannondell. “I was figuring they should be doing something.” Ellen
Hinds’ agreement with Shannondell gave either her or the community the
right to ask for a higher level of care.

Jenny Hinds said the family felt Ellen Hinds was safe at
Shannondell. “We were looking to them to guide us,” she said. “They
said they would help us through this journey.”

Snyder says security footage viewed by Erik Snyder, his son and
law partner, shows Ellen Hinds trying to get back in the building the
night she went out without her key card. The doors have keypads that
allow residents to call security with a four-digit code. Hinds, the
lawsuit says, is seen repeatedly touching the pad as well as tugging and
banging on doors. Robert Snyder said he can’t tell whether she failed
to punch the right code or the guard failed to respond.Photo courtesy of the Hinds family

This is a
photograph of Ellen Hinds taken in the hospital after she left her
apartment building on a cold night and was unable to get back inside.
She later died of hypothermia.

He contends that facilities like Shannondell should make doors safer
for residents who can’t remember the code needed to summon help, perhaps
with vestibules protected from the weather and red buttons that make it
easier to call security. David Danton, senior principal with KDA
Architects in Voorhees, which specializes in designs for senior housing,
said vestibules are unusual for anything other than main entrances.

The lawsuit said the security film showed someone inside the building
looking out shortly after 5 a.m. and failing to notice Hinds slumped
over a trash receptacle 15 to 20 feet away. By 5:52, the video showed
that Hinds had fallen in the snow. She was found around 7 a.m. and an
ambulance arrived at 7:20.

Rowe said he filed the suit because “I don’t want it to happen to someone else.”

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF)– Two House Bills paired with one Senate Bill to protect the elderly could soon be going to Governor Nathan Deal’s desk.

House Bill 635 passed unanimously Thursday, which could more efficiently tackle elderly abuse throughout the state.

“[It] looks at the success the C.A.V.E. group has had in Augusta and
suggests that it be replicated across the state,” Kathy Floyd, the
Executive Director of Georgia Council on Aging, told NewsChannel 6.

The C.A.V.E task force, Crimes Against the Elderly, is comprised of
people from the District Attorney’s office, Sheriff’s and Marshal’s
offices and the coroner’s office.

The group was recognized last week at the state capital by the G.B.I and a House legislature.

The second bill, House Bill 803, focuses on trafficking disabled
adults. Law enforcement has discovered some illegal care home owners are
moving disabled adults around to avoid detection. And in some cases,
they are taking residents in specifically to control their social
security benefits.

“They don’t take enough to pay for their residents,” Floyd explained. “They take the entire amount.”

The last bill, out of the Senate, would tighten the process of how
caregivers are hired: “This is a part of the governor’s criminal justice
proposal, and it would require fingerprint background checks for all
care workers in long-term care settings,” Floyd said.

This will be especially effective for Georgia cities that border
other states, like Augusta touching South Carolina– to detect crimes
that happened in states besides the one he or she resides in.

“One of the things we want to start looking at after this legislative
session is over is at the fines and sanction of personal care homes,”
Floyd told us. “They have not been updated for a number of years.”

Rachel Aviv’s “What Does it Mean to Die?”
profiles Jahi McMath, outlining this resilient and courageous young
girl’s situation in much of its depth, conveying the complex nature of
Jahi’s medical and legal situation as it relates to the neurological
criterion for death (“brain death”) and many medical, bioethical,
philosophical, and religious dimensions of the issue of human life. Unfortunately,
in this same piece the New Yorker presents editorialized speculation
and hearsay on Terri Schiavo as if it were objective news. Worse, after
nearly two weeks of appeals, the New Yorker’s “fact checking” staff and
editors refused any correction.

The New Yorker editorializes that footage of Terri Schiavo appearing
conscious and aware “had been edited, giving the illusion that she was
tracking people with her eyes, even though she was blind”.

These “fact free” assertions dramatically misleads readers about the
nature of the early 2000s Terri-related footage. A much more objective
and medically sound characterization in the form of a correction was
proposed to the New Yorker but rejected: “Short video footage of Dr.
Ronald Cranford’s neurological examination of Terri Schiavo on behalf of
her husband, Michael Schiavo, remains controversial, due to the
uncertain nature of her visual and cognitive abilities”. CONTINUE

First
appeared in the Dakota Voice, available here. One can’t help but wonder
if perhaps the mainstream media is feeling a growing sense of
uneasiness regarding Terri’s death. In the two years since my sister
died I have witnessed an increasing determination on their part to
convince the public that…

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Public conservatorship laws may soon expand throughout the state,
including in San Francisco, under proposed legislation by state Sen.
Scott Wiener.

Wiener said at a press conference on Monday that the current
conservatorship laws are not allowing cities to help the homeless
population suffering from mental illness:

“The public conservatorship laws are simply too rigid to
allow counties to help those who are the greatest distressed on the
streets.”

Wiener said those with severe mental health or drug addiction
problems that are put under a 72-hour or 14-day hold by The City, sober
up, become lucid, and may appear fit to take care of themselves in front
of a judge, usually end up back on the streets and back in The City’s
hands:

“This is a life or death situation, and it is beyond humane to just sit back and watch as these people die.”

Wiener addressed the civil liberties concerns over Senate Bill 1045,
acknowledging that taking a person’s civil liberties and making
decisions for them is serious. He said the proposed legislation will
include the state’s existing checks and balances system, which include a
judicial oversight committee.
Barbara Garcia, director of public health department, in support of SB 1045, said:

“The laws today inhibit us to do the kinds of work we that believe that they need.”

Mayor Mark Farrell and Board of Supervisors President London Breed both support Wiener’s legislation.
Farrell said:

“We have to explore new ways to help these individuals. The status quo is unacceptable.”

Breed will introduce new legislation at the Board of Supervisors
Tuesday to transfer the responsibility of non-criminal mental health
conservatorship cases from the district attorney to the city attorney.
Breed said:

“These cases should not be treated as a crime, but as a civil matter. The same way we treat child and family law in The City.”

Breed will also request a drafting of legislation to create a Mental
Health Services pilot program involving the Department of Health,
Department of Aging and Adult Services, Department of Homelessness and
Supportive Housing, The City’s Police Department and BART’s Police
Department.

Under the pilot program, the agencies would create a list of
“high-risk” individuals suffering from mental illness, substance abuse
or chronic homelessness. The agencies would then meet bi-weekly do
discuss way to help those individuals on the list.

The scaled-down guardianship reform package that unanimously passed the
state House of Representatives and Senate in the waning hours of the
Legislature is, in the words of Rep. Daymon Ely, “an excellent and
substantial start, but … by no means the end of the process.”

Major
changes in the legislation on the way to Gov. Susana Martinez will open
the now-secret process to the public and family members who for the
most part have been shut out.

The more extensive measure sponsored
by Sen. James White, R-Albuquerque, took on a guardianship system that
can generously be described as “broken.” It is an industry dominated by
insiders that has allowed wasting of assets, outright theft, and
mistreatment of wards and families by for-profit guardians and
conservators.

Court oversight has been inadequate at best as
millions of dollars have either been wasted by for-profit insiders or
siphoned away from the assets of some of our most vulnerable people –
those declared by a judge to be incapacitated.

In other cases, family members who objected to mistreatment of their
loved ones or profligate spending by court-appointed conservators and
guardians found themselves barred from even seeing their family member.
Their complaints were often dismissed as “emotional.”

“This is
long overdue reform,” says Ely, D-Corrales, who worked hard in the House
Judiciary Committee to save the bill by stripping measures from White’s
bill that imposed major changes on the judiciary – changes the courts
said they were not yet prepared to deal with. In the end, the judiciary
agreed reforms are needed and has pledged to work on additional changes –
some contained in a model national statute drafted by the Uniform Law
Commission.

Make no mistake. Even with the governor’s signature
and the $1 million that comes with it to implement a revised system,
there is much work left to be done. White told the Judiciary Committee
that if someone asked him now whether they should get a guardian
appointed for a loved one, “I’d say, don’t do it. This system is so
broken right now.”

Abuses of the system have been chronicled in
the Albuquerque Journal for more than a year – coverage originally met
with protests from the industry and some judges. But as the story has
unfolded – including federal criminal charges against commercial
guardian firm Ayudando Guardians, which is accused of stealing millions
from its clients, the tide of public opinion has turned.

Mary
Darnell, whose family’s issues were featured in the Journal Series “Who
Guards the Guardians,” asked members of the House Judiciary Committee to
picture themselves in the place of families caught up in the system and
pleaded with them to help those in guardianships “who don’t have a
voice.” There could be as many as 7,000 people in New Mexico under
guardianships – although the courts don’t actually know how many such
cases exist. Some of the appropriation will go to determining the status
of these cases.

Other necessary changes that are needed going
forward involve a system by which a petitioning lawyer can’t also in
effect name the guardian ad litem who will decide if a guardianship is
needed. A formal method that allows families to put forth grievances is
essential.

There has been a national movement to reform
guardianships, and as usual New Mexico has lagged behind. But lawmakers
have taken an important first step that moves us toward the forefront
and deserves the governor’s signature.

Now it’s
up to Gov. Martinez to make sure this first step takes effect July 1 –
with the modest appropriation needed to make it work. Thousands of
vulnerable people and their families are counting on it.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was
written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it
represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

A
recent article in The New Yorker reported on a case in Nevada in which a
professional guardian had herself appointed as guardian over numerous
elderly people. The elderly people became her wards without ever
requesting her services. After being appointed as their guardian, she
engaged in a pattern of fraud against the elderly wards. None of the
elderly wards had any prior relationship with the professional guardian,
nor had they even known her prior to her seeking appointment to be
their guardian.

Oregon
attempts to regulate professional guardians, but it is nevertheless
possible for a professional guardian to be appointed as guardian even
though they are a stranger to the proposed ward.

How can this be avoided?

Oregon
law provides that a court is required to give preference to a person’s
expressed desire when appointing a guardian for the person. One way this
can be accomplished is by specifying your preference for a future
guardian in a written power of attorney, which can be signed in advance
and remain in effect even if you become incapacitated later. Such power
of attorney can be distributed to family members, and a copy can be kept
with your attorney so that your wishes will be honored if it becomes
necessary in future for a guardian to be appointed. People typically
nominate friends or family members in their power of attorney document
for this purpose.

Some older
powers of attorney forms did not contain such nomination provision for
guardians. If yours does not, you should consider updating your power of
attorney so that your wishes regarding these matters will be clearly
established.

Bruce Coalwell has been an attorney in Roseburg since 1981 and is a shareholder in the law firm of Dole Coalwell, P.C.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Staying out of probate court can save you thousands of dollars, time and frustration.

In Maricopa County, there are about 22,000 probate cases a year, and the caseload has steadily increased in recent years.

The
term "probate" refers to the establishment or validity of a will, but
probate court in Maricopa County handles guardianship and
conservatorship cases as well as formal and informal disputes over wills
and adult adoption.

Here are some tips from Candice Lapin, who has researched probate issues for Legalzoom. She recommends:

Write a living trust:
A living trust is merely an alternative to a last will. But unlike a
will, which merely distributes your assets upon death, a living trust
places your assets and property "in trust," which is then managed by a
trustee for the benefit of your beneficiaries. It allows you to avoid
probate entirely because the property and assets are already distributed
to the trust.

Name beneficiaries on your retirement and bank accounts: By
filling out paperwork on these forms, a person ensures that proceeds
are dispersed at death without having to pass through probate.

Create joint tenancy with a right of survivorship: Another way to keep your real estate out of probate is to consider holding your property jointly.

Curtis
Chipman, an attorney at Udall Shumway in Mesa, said residents can avoid
probate court by obtaining a durable power of attorney when all of the
people involved still have their mental faculties.

Although
it may cost a few hundred dollars in legal fees for a durable power of
attorney or a few thousand dollars to create a trust, the legal expense
typically is far less than what someone would have to pay in probate
court, Chipman said.

A Bethlehem Township woman charged with being the legal guardian for a
great aunt with dementia is accused of stealing $78,000 from the woman.

Deanna Attinello, 23, was charged Thursday with second-degree
misapplication of entrusted property and theft by failure to make a
required disposition of property, following an indictment handed up last
week by a state grand jury in Trenton.

"We allege that the defendant shamelessly exploited her position as
her aunt's trusted guardian to raid the woman's bank account for own her
personal use," New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a news
release.

Attinello was appointed her 86-year-old great aunt's legal guardian
in January 2017, four months after the elderly woman was diagnosed with
dementia and admitted to a long-term residential care facility in Warren
County, prosecutors said.

Within days of being appointed, Attinello changed a PNC Bank account
belonging to her great aunt to a guardianship account in both their
names, and combined the aunt's five other accounts into the guardianship
account.

With a balance of about $229,000, Attinello began withdrawing large
amounts of cash from the elderly woman's account, investigators said.

About $125,000 was taken for the great aunt's expenses, including her
residential case, healthcare costs, legal fees, and property taxes and
repair, prosecutors said.

James
Hamilton (pictured) said the decision to place his stepmother Cheryl
Shaw-Hamilton into the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and
Rehabilitation was heart-wrenching. (Jesse Ward/for New York Daily News)

A dementia patient wandered off in the frigid cold, without a coat,
during a transport between two Brooklyn nursing homes — and was
discovered 12 hours later by her frantic family at a Queens hospital,
relatives told The Daily News.

James Hamilton told The News the decision to place his stepmother
Cheryl Shaw-Hamilton into the Crown Heights Center for Nursing and
Rehabilitation was heart-wrenching.

"I'm desperately trying to keep her safe,” said Hamilton, 37, of Rego
Park. “From January 1 to January 10 she drastically changed.”

Shaw-Hamilton, 70, has suffered from lupus for much of her life, but
over the last nine years — after retiring from a career in bookkeeping —
she was ultimately diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Shaw-Hamilton's stay at the St. Marks Ave. facility was only a brief
stint before her expected transfer to the Linden Center for Nursing and
Rehabilitation in East New York, which has a dementia unit for long-term
care, Hamilton said.

He said on Feb. 8, he got a call around 1 p.m. that she was finally getting transferred to the Linden facility.

"When I arrived at the Linden Boulevard center around 6 (p.m.), they said she wasn't there," said Hamilton.

The worried son then called the Crown Heights facility, which told him
his stepmom was transported by Royalty Transportation LLC ambulette
services around 3:30 p.m. and arrived at 4:30 p.m.

"We checked the security footage and it shows a man guide her to the
front door,” Hamilton said. “She then walked passed the door. He guided
her again into the lobby, she walked in and he left. You see her scratch
her head, look into her bag, turn around and walk out.”

Protocol for transporting drivers is to take the patient into the
facility and complete the transfer with a staff member, a source told
The News.

"This was an egregious violation of protocol by Royalty's driver and is
totally unacceptable,” said Nelissa Garces, an administrator with
Linden Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation. “By contrast, Linden
Center staff followed all patient transfer procedures properly.”

The driver was fired, according to an employee of the transportation service.

“The safety and well-being of our residents is paramount, and we
immediately reported this incident to the Department of Health," said
Graces.

After reviewing the surveillance video with the security guard,
Hamilton said he immediately called the police to report his stepmom
missing.

From 8 p.m. on Feb. 8 until 9:30 a.m. Feb. 9, Hamilton, his cousin and
the police searched for Shaw-Hamilton throughout Brooklyn, in local
hospitals and fast-food restaurants with 24-hour sitting areas — all to
no avail.

"I went home and got a call from her transportation service confirming
that she would be discharged from Jamaica Hospital. I told them not to
let her go," said Hamilton who rushed over to the hospital.

Shaw-Hamilton was confused with a large gauze over the right side her forehead and dark circles around her eyes, he said.

"I was so happy to see her. The hospital staff was able to figure out
who she was through her Medicaid cards," said Hamilton, who remembers
his stepmom as a vibrant person who loved to travel and dance before she
suffered dementia.

"It was 10 degrees, she was out all night and didn't have on a coat,”
said Davis. “Both facilities and the ambulette must be held accountable
for allowing this to happen and not happen to anyone else."

"Clearly facilities and transportation companies that treat the elderly
with Alzheimer’s have an obligation to the patient and families to
safely transport them from one place to another. In this case, they
woefully failed the patient and her family," said Rubenstein.

Royalty Transportation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

In the first episode, the Archangels of Justice speak with Marcia
Southwick from the NASGA about guardianship abuse. We begin by talking
about the basics of guardianship, where it came from and how the law has
been misused, misapplied, or manipulated. We look at the people who are
most at risk for abuse and how to prevent this from happening to you or
someone you love.

Marcia, Sal and Ira share some stories about the people they have
helped throughout the years and everything they had to go through even
though their clients where in the right. This is a problem in every
state and can effect every single person in the United States.

Next we talk about NASGA (National Association to Stop Guardian Abuse) and their mission:

To protect the civil/human rights – life, liberty and property – of
vulnerable persons described as “incompetent” and made wards of the
state in unlawful and abusive guardianships and conservatorships;

To end financial exploitation of their wards’ assets by
court-appointed fiduciaries* who, instead of conserving their wards’
assets as required by law, force previously financially able wards onto
Medicaid at Taxpayer expense;

To be a support organization for families battling court-appointed
“protectors” who permit due process and other violations of law to
occur, including physical and mental abuse and isolation; and

To obtain reform – through outreach, education and advocacy – by
meaningful amendment of existing statutes and increased penalties
against violations of law.

In part one of a two-part series, we speak with Becky Schultz about her father, Guadalupe Olvera, and the experience she had with a guardianship in Nevada. Her father was a WW2 vet and 89 years old at the time. Becky has been fighting against this abusive guardian, Jared Shafer in Nevada courts for over 8 years. The police departments have little to no interest in her case and the justice department has ignored her pleas, listen to her story but understand that this happens in every state across the country and many people find out when it’s too late.
In the first episode, we hear Becky tell her horrifying story and how they ended up in this mess. We hear Guadalupe pleading with the court to allow him to live with his daughter in California and the judge ignoring him. Becky then tells us how she snuck him out of his house in the middle of the night and never took him back. Subscribe today and never miss an episode from Archangels of Justice!

In second part of our two-part series about a corrupt guardianship in Nevada. We finish our conversation with Becky Schultz, whose father was exploited personally by Jared Shafer. We pick up right were we left off in part 1 and continue our conversation about Jared Shafer and his company that have been doing this in Nevada for over 38 years. Becky then talks about the articles that featured her father’s case in the New Yorker and Las Vegas Review Journal.
As we move further in our conversation, we bring up the current Democratic Senator from Nevada and former Attorney General, Catherine Cortez Masto, who continually ignored Becky pleas and has still not addressed this problem, even today. We then ask Becky about her lawsuit and all the problems it has caused for her family. The last topic we discuss is anything different she would have done if it happened to her again and how to avoid it in your own life. Subscribe today and never miss an episode from Archangels of Justice!

He was
supposed to serve and protect but instead he's accused of felony crimes
for using Clark County's guardianship system to steal from the estate of
a vulnerable couple. And this police officer is directly connected to
others first exposed in our ongoing investigation of guardianship
corruption.

Lieutenant James Thomas Melton is a decorated police
veteran. As a sergeant, Melton received a group Medal of Valor and
Purple Heart in 2009 for being wounded during a domestic violence call
where a baby was pulled away from gunfire.

He was also a homicide detective and Metro's SWAT commander--making about $300,000 a year including benefits.

But
Valentine's Day, a fall from grace as Melton was indicted by a grand
jury and charged with stealing the life savings, over $700,000 from an
87-year-old widow suffering from dementia.

Court records claim
Melton deceived the court after the victim died, representing that she
was still alive so he could be named beneficiary on various accounts.

Parks,
her attorney Noel Palmer Simpson and former office manager Mark Simmons
all face additional charges of exploitation for working with Melton.

According to the indictment, Melton is also accused of stealing the
victim's Ford Explorer and taking $2,187.50 from her Disabled American
Veterans Charitable Service Trust.

Melton is expected to be in
court next week. When allegations first surfaced in July, he was put on
leave with pay. Metro says he will now be relieved of duty without pay.
The trial for Parks and her co-defendants is scheduled for May.

A Cook County, Ill. circuit judge is now facing resignation following a
conviction in a federal $1.4 million mortgage fraud scheme.

Following a six-day trial, a jury convicted Judge Jessica Arong
O’Brien of two counts of fraud for scamming several different lenders
through the purchase of two properties on the city’s South Side when she
was a lawyer and real estate agent 10 years ago.

The Chicago Tribune reports
that O'Brien was elected to the bench in 2012 and is the first Filipina
judge in Cook County. She presided over a small-claims courtroom before
being reassigned to administrative duties following her indictment last
year.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin set O’Brien’s sentencing for July 6.

The Tribune reports that while the scheme took place long before
O’Brien was elected to serve as a judge, under Illinois state law it is
mandatory that an elected official can’t stay in office after a felony
conviction but the timetable for her removal is unclear.

At the time of the fraud, O'Brien was serving as special assistant
attorney general for the Illinois Department of Revenue, where she also
reportedly held the position of chief counsel to the Illinois Lottery.
O’Brien also owned her own real estate company and worked part time as a
loan originator for Amronbanc Mortgage Corp.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Madden told jurors in his remarks
that O'Brien lied at least four times on loan and refinancing
applications for two investment properties she purchased in 2004 and
2005 when she was working as a lawyer for the Illinois Department of
Revenue.

She then made a profit by unloading the two homes in 2007 by paying kickbacks to a straw purchaser, Madden said.

In all, O'Brien pocketed at least $325,000 from the transactions,
Madden said. She also caused losses to lenders after the straw
purchaser defaulted on payments and the properties wound up in
foreclosure, he said.

"She used lies to buy and sell these properties," Madden said.

Among the lies O'Brien told were listing her income as $81,000 in
2004 when in fact she was on maternity leave and made only $11,000 that
year, Madden said.

The next year, O'Brien claimed in refinancing documents that her
company, O'Brien Realty, took in at least $240,000 in profits in 2005,
but tax returns showed only $21,000 in receipts, Madden said.

Maria Bartko, a co-defendant in the case, was also working for
Amronbanc and agreed to take part in the scheme, prosecutors said. Bartko plead guilty last month
to one count of mail fraud affecting a financial institution and agreed
to testify against O’Brien but the Tribune reports she was never called
as a witness.

In 1936, Ann Cooper Hewitt filed a lawsuit
against her mother — and with good reason. At the age of 20, her mother
Ann had sterilized her against her will. Having succeeded in
classifying her as having an intellectual disability, Ann’s mother was
legally allowed to authorize the operation over Ann’s objections. Her
mother’s lawyer responded by claiming that Ann’s sterilization had been
“for society’s sake” due to the girl’s “erotic tendencies.”

Even
in the age of the eugenics movement, where tens of thousands were
involuntarily sterilized by state governments who sought to breed
“better” human beings by removing disability from the gene pool, the
Hewitt case attracted nationwide attention. Could a diagnosis of
disability allow parents to control their child’s reproductive future
against his or her will?

Ann believed it could not, summarizing
her fate matter-of-factly. “I had no dolls when I was little, and I'll
have no children when I'm old,” she said. “That’s all there is to it.”

We’ve
come a long way since the age of the eugenics movement, particularly
when it comes to matters of reproductive choice and bodily autonomy. And
yet, state laws still allow people with disabilities to be sterilized
without their consent. Today the state of Washington is considering a
proposal that the ACLU believes could expand the use of sterilization
for individuals under guardianship. Guardianship is a surprisingly
common legal arrangement where a third-party is authorized to make
virtually all decisions for a person with a disability.

Currently,
state law fortunately prohibits guardians from authorizing
sterilization without court approval — but the state judicial system is currently considering a proposal to create a form
to more clearly articulate how guardians can request permission for
this procedure. While the proposal is designed to clarify existing law,
advocates with disabilities and the ACLU believe that creating this form
will streamline the process and increase the number of guardians
requesting the sterilization of those under their power.

Ivanova Smith, a new mother with a developmental disability, has written beautifully in the ACLU of Washington’s blog
about how people with disabilities can become loving, responsible
parents, if they so choose. People with disabilities should not be
denied this choice. Given the unfortunate history of involuntary
sterilization of people with disabilities across the country, states
must take extra caution to avoid imposing sterilization against those
who, for whatever reason, do not freely choose it. It is vital that we
leave behind the days in which people with disabilities lacked
reproductive choice.

Whether it comes from parents, the court
system, or anyone else, sterilization should never be imposed on a
person without their consent.

For those who do choose it for
themselves, sterilization can be an appropriate medical procedure. But
the presence of guardianship seriously complicates the issue.
Guardianship entails loss of legal adulthood, meaning that an individual
lacks capacity in the eyes of the law to make their own decisions or
express their own will and preference on how they should be treated.
Measures to make it easier for guardians to permanently sterilize people
with disabilities should be viewed as suspect. The Hewitt case is only
one example in a long line of disagreements over who gets to make
choices about medical procedures applied to people with intellectual
disabilities.

Such
decisions are often treated as family choices rather than questions of
individual autonomy, which should require an expression of preference on
the part of the person receiving the procedure. Some guardians cite
fears of sexual assault in choosing to sterilize people with
disabilities — yet sterilization in no way prevents the sexual assault
of people with developmental disabilities, an all too common occurrence.
Instead, it can merely hide evidence of it. As such, there are credible
concerns that guardians may seek sterilization as a means of lessening
the complications emerging from abuse, rather than taking the measures
necessary to stop it. The state of Washington should decline to
streamline the process for guardian-imposed sterilization. The state can
ensure that individuals who require decision-making support have a
clear process by which they — rather than their guardian — can request
such a procedure (if it is truly their choice to do so). Guardianship,
with its total loss of decision-making authority by the individual, is
not the appropriate mechanism for this. Instead, the state should
consider joining Texas, Delaware, and jurisdictions around the world in implementing supported decision-making,
a new legal arrangement that allows people with disabilities to choose
trusted advisors to help them with their choices without surrendering
final decision-making authority.

Control over one’s own body is
one of the most fundamental civil liberties. Everyone deserves the right
to have the final say about what happens to their own body. People with
disabilities are no different.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Legislation to improve New Mexico’s troubled guardianship system through transparency and greater involvement of family members is headed to the desk of Gov. Susana Martinez.

The 60-page bill is designed to prevent abuse and exploitation of thousands of incapacitated people who are under court-ordered guardianship or conservatorship in the state.

The measure, which involved last-minute efforts by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to address the issue this session, put off more comprehensive reforms, which are to be studied for the next two years.

Sen. Ivey-Soto

“Some things have to be above politics,” said state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque. “This guardian issue is one of those issues.”

After a unanimous vote of approval by the House late Wednesday, the Senate took up the amended measure for concurrence in the first hour of the last day of the 30-day session. That vote was unanimous. If Martinez approves the bill, changes could go into effect July 1.

SANTA FE – A package of remedies to try to fix the state’s ailing
guardianship system cleared the House late Wednesday on a 63-0 vote,
with the measure headed to the Senate for concurrence as the final hours
waned in this year’s legislative session.

The bill, if approved,
would provide more public and family access to the traditionally closed
system for the hundreds of mentally or physically incapacitated adults
in New Mexico who are placed under court-appointed guardianships or
conservatorships each year.
If approved, the reforms would into effect July 1.

State Rep. Gail Chasey, D-Albuquerque, chairwoman of the House
Judiciary Committee, before the vote Wednesday night said the bill is
“manageable, measured and still addressed substantive reforms.”

Earlier in the day, Chasey said addressing the guardianship issue was a “huge priority in the session.”

Heavily
amended in the committee process, the measure “is an excellent and
substantial start, but it is by no means the end of the process,” said
Rep. Daymon Ely, D-Corrales.

Ely led the move to lop off 200 pages
of the original bill, which would have adopted a version of a new model
Uniform Guardianship Act, which was considered too costly and in need
of more study.

Before the House vote, Ely said that not all court-appointed guardians or conservators are “bad actors.”

“But
this has become a tremendous problem,” Ely said. “There were some
really doing horrendous things to very vulnerable people and their
families.”

The bill relies on increased transparency, providing
for open court hearings and more involvement of family members, to help
deter abuses and exploitation that critics of the system have complained
about publicly for months. The open hearings could still be closed at
the court’s discretion, but an open hearing on the closure would have to
be held first.

To salvage the reform bill, Chasey’s committee
agreed to kill the section that would have implemented a national reform
statute by July 2020.

The courts, which still can’t say exactly how many people are
currently under guardianships or conservatorships, say New Mexico’s
underfunded judicial system isn’t ready for such a dramatic and costly
change.

Earlier in the week, Ely took the lead in proposing
amendments to keep the implementation of the key provisions low-cost,
within $1 million.

“This is a long-overdue reform,” Ely told the
Journal. “There’s two ways that you get the crooks. One is you shine a
light on them with transparency. The other is you make them accountable.
You make them worry that somebody’s going to catch them.”

Nearly
all the criticism of the system involves corporate guardians and
conservators appointed by the courts in cases in which people are
mentally or physically incapacitated. Over the past year, a major New
Mexico corporate guardian, Ayudando Guardians, was closed by the U.S.
Marshals Office after its top executives were indicted on federal
charges related to the embezzlement of more than $4 million in client
funds.

Primary opposition to the scaled-back version came from its
original sponsor, state Sen. Jim White, R-Albuquerque, who proposed the
state adopt a version of the newly released Uniform Guardianship Act,
which provides for improved representation of those incapacitated people
in guardianship and conservatorship proceedings. The comprehensive
model law would also set out specific ways families could file
grievances with the court about the appointed guardian or conservator.

“I’m
so happy we’ve got this interest going, We didn’t have this a year
ago,” White told the House Judiciary Committee before it scrapped the
provision to implement the new model law by 2020. “But there’s a lot
more that can be done. We need to make a commitment to bigger changes.”

White
said that if someone would ask him whether they should get a guardian
appointed, “I’d say, ‘Don’t do it.’ The system is so broken right now.”

He described the current closed process as “very, very scary.”

Ely,
an attorney who said he has sued conservators in the past, told the
Journal his amendments included a provision to outlaw the practice of
some conservators, who oversee an incapacitated person’s finances, to
require heirs to release them from all liability before they receive any
distribution from an estate.

In addition, under the proposed
legislation, “You can’t restrict visitors as much as you used to,” said
Ely, who added that some “nefarious” guardians and conservators keep
relatives away so they can “isolate the incapacitated person.”

Another
feature of the bill is to require professional conservators to post
bonds and file regular, extensive accountings with the courts on how
they have handled an incapacitated person’s financial affairs. “I did
hear this from one conservator that they couldn’t violate the
confidentiality (of the closed process) to cooperate with the audit, and
I thought that was unbelievable.” Ely said.

But Ely said the
provisions aimed at accountability would be ineffective without the
proposed $1 million in funding in House Bill 2 dedicated to guardianship
reform. That money would help the courts research their case files to
ascertain who is currently under guardianship and their status. The
appropriation would help pay for independent auditors to perform spot
checks.

Judges would also need to be educated on the reforms, he said.

“We’re
depending on you to make it right for people who don’t have a voice”
said Mary Darnell. The controversial guardianship/conservatorship case
in 2010 of her mother, Blair Darnell, was featured in “Who’s Guarding
the Guardians?,” a Journal investigative series, in late 2016.

Darnell
asked the committee members to consider what would happen if they
someday were placed under a court-appointed guardianship or
conservatorship in New Mexico.

“If somebody walks into your home …
puts down court papers and says they’re appointed by the court to take
care of you and they have all your finances in their name … your family
is going to be turned upside down. The courts are culpable, because they
hire these people and they’re not overseeing them.”

Ely said the
challenge of fixing all the problems with current law is daunting,
considering that legislators had less than 30 days to achieve consensus.

“I
think everybody, including Sen. White, are all motivated to do the
right thing. Is it going to be perfect? No. But is this an incredibly
significant reform to the process? Yes. And if we discover there are
problems, we can come back during the next 60-day session and fix them.”

A former Schaumburg
lawyer faces up to 15 years in prison after he was convicted Tuesday of
swindling his relatives and others out of more than $200,000, officials
said.

A jury found Lino J. Menconi, 52, guilty of two
counts of theft of more than $100,000 each, according to the Cook County
state’s attorney’s office.

The Illinois Supreme Court suspended and then in 2014
disbarred Menconi after the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary
Commission accused him of stealing more than $600,000 from clients
starting as far back as 2006.

The commission accused him
of misleading clients and forging their signatures on settlement
payments for money to pay for his mortgage, his children's education,
property taxes and country club bills.

His
victims included his aunt and uncle, Judy and Leno Menconi, of Oak
Lawn. Their son, Mike Menconi, said his parents, now deceased, were in
poor health when his cousin took advantage of them, and that their
financial losses may have contributed to his father going to a nursing
home rather than receiving home health care.

Lino Menconi
“is like a serial lying sort of predator,” Mike Menconi said. “He’s
just going to take your money and disappear. … I feel like I got justice
for my parents.”

Menconi represented himself in the
case, though he is no longer a practicing attorney. Prosecutors
requested that Menconi be taken into custody following the decision,
Mike Menconi said, but he was allowed to remain free on bond.

Angry residents at Autumn Glen Senior Living in Coon Rapids pushed back
against steep rent increases of 15 to 30 percent, which had threatened
to uproot them from their apartments.

After an outcry from
elderly residents and state lawmakers, a large senior living complex in
Coon Rapids has reversed plans to impose double-digit rent increases
that could have uprooted dozens of longtime neighbors and splintered the
community.

In a letter sent Tuesday, the operator of Autumn Glen Senior Living
apologized for not communicating directly with residents about rent
hikes of 15 to 30 percent that took effect in January.

The operator said
it would instead limit the rent increase to 4 percent and promised to
provide a clear explanation for any future rent increases of 5 percent
or more. “We hope these adjustments will make your apartment feel like
home again as we work together in supporting your future needs here,”
wrote Dan Dixon, president and chief executive of Guardian Angels Senior Services of Elk River, a nonprofit organization that manages the facility for a group of private investors.

The decision marks a
dramatic change in fortunes for the roughly 100 seniors who live at
Autumn Glen, a complex that includes apartments, assisted living and
memory care.

For nearly
two months, residents had challenged the rent increases with limited
success. They formed a committee, called legislators and city council
members, circulated a petition signed by more than 40 residents, and
demanded a meeting with the facility’s private investors. Instead, they
were referred to Guardian Angels Senior Services, which said it was
unable to explain the reason for the rent increases.

“They
underestimated our persistence,” said Janet Dahlquist, 85, who started
looking for a new place to live after her rent at Autumn Glen went from
$2,600 to $3,000 a month. “I think they thought we were old and frail
and unable to speak up. But we were very determined to shake people up
about this — and we did.”

Elder-care
advocates say the case highlights the general lack of consumer
protections for the roughly 60,000 Minnesotans who live in senior
facilities across the state. Minnesota is one of just a handful of
states that does not license these facilities, which means that elderly
residents have few protections against sudden rent hikes and evictions.
Despite the vulnerability of their residents, assisted-living facilities
fall under the same landlord-tenant rules that govern ordinary rental
properties and apartment buildings.

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NASGA

NASGA (National Association to STOP Guardian Abuse, Inc.) is a 501(c)(3) public-interest, civil rights organization formed by victims of unlawful and abusive guardianships and conservatorships. We seek legislative reform of existing law and upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment and engaging in elder and family abuse.

Our mission is to promote the safety and well being of vulnerable persons subject to injury and damage in their person and property through unlawful and abusive guardianship and/or conservatorship proceedings; to end the growing violations of due process, civil and human rights; to work towards ultimate legislative reform of guardianship as presently practiced; upgrading of criminal penalties for court-appointed fiduciaries misusing protective proceedings for unjust enrichment; and to be a support organization for victims and their families. We carry out our mission through research, outreach, education and advocacy; and going forward, by alliance with community interest, law reform, civil rights and other advocacy organizations.

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